The EU Ministers devoted a lot of attention to discussing items in an EU Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy. The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini will prepare the strategy by June 2016, as she was asked by EU leaders at the June 2015 European Council. In the discussion, Linkevičius stressed that, first of all, the future strategy had to identify the emerging threats to us and the European Union, while Russia and its actions both in Eastern Europe and globally represented one of the major threats. The head of the Lithuanian diplomacy also underlined the need for cooperation between the EU and NATO.
The meeting also discussed another issue, which is not less important – migration. The EU Ministers focused both on the EU and third countries, where the situation remains extremely serious. The EU Ministers called for an integrated approach for migration, asylum and external border control. According to them, it is necessary to seek conclusion of readmission agreements with third countries and return economic migrants to their home countries as soon as possible, strengthen the protection of the EU's external borders. The Ministers also said that Russian support of the Syrian government in its fight against its opposition had only increased migration flows to Europe and impeded progress towards a Syria solution. Ministers of the current candidate countries – Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey – joined the discussion of the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers. The Ministers acknowledged the efforts by Turkey and other candidate countries to properly manage the mass migration, and called for strengthening cooperation in addressing the challenges of migration.
The Ministers discussed also the EU's further cooperation with Iran in foreign trade, financial services, banking, energy, oil, chemical products and other sectors after sanctions were lifted on 16 January 2016. It is expected that the first confidence-building steps between Iran and the West will allow dialogue on ending violence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, preventing even greater geopolitical changes from happening in the Middle East.
